WHILE MOST COMPANIEStoday
have a specific individual, perhaps even an entire organization, who is
responsible for corporate objectives and oversight in quality, environmental
issues, and safety, there seems to be a stigma attached to the same level
of oversight for standards. In fact, most companies, though they may have
dozens or even hundreds of employees participating in the standards community,
still perceive “standards stuff” to be simply a technical contribution
rather than the fundamental business issue it really is.

In reality, standards are a complicated issue in today’s global economy
and should be addressed as part of the company’s strategic plan. Yes, participation
in technical standards committees is important. But the other side of the
coin is strategic involvement in the management organizations and boards
that run the technical committees.

The standards professional is an individual whose primary job function
is to work on the management committees of both domestic and international
standards developing organizations (SDOs). Rather than working on near-term
technical issues such as size or weight or processing speed, he is involved
with long-term management decisions such as “What standards are appropriate?,”
“Who will create them?” and “What policies and procedures must be followed?”
Negotiating the correct answers to these and other management and policy
questions enables the work of the technical participants to flow more smoothly,
thereby raising the return on investment of their own participation and
their value to the company and global industry.

Why Does an Enterprise Need a Standards
Professional?

With or without U.S. participation, international standards are increasingly
being used today as components of international trade. U.S. industry, which
25 years ago was a clear leader in the development of international standards,
is continuing to discover that it is no longer the de facto standards generator
it once was. As the world’s economic climate changes, multinational agreements
such as those incorporated into the European Free Trade Agreement and the
North American Free Trade Agreement are making proactive managed participation
in both national and international standards a necessity rather than a
nicety. As a result, many more U.S. companies are making the transition
from simply using standards developed by others to actively participating
in management and technical standards activities that directly affect them.

However this participation is too often conducted in a haphazard fashion.
Employees may be told by their supervisors to participate in a technical
or management committee that they are ill equipped to handle—either by
training or personality. Often employees will take it upon themselves to
try to participate out of enlightened self interest but find that their
supervisors don’t understand the amount of time and travel required. Their
standards participation is treated as an extra-curricular activity on top
of their “real jobs.” Both of these and other similar situations point
to a lack of understanding by management as to the strategic nature of
standards participation.

The basic strategic decision a company must make is whether it wants
to follow standards or lead the standards- making activity in a particular
area. Either decision is acceptable, as long as it is explicitly made.
The Competitor’s Creed provides an allegorical
model for any company’s stance with respect to standards.

But in either case, the company needs to take proactive action in the
form of Strategic Standards Management (SSM)
to manage its standards activities rather than let them happen in an ad
hoc fashion. SSM is a complex and ongoing process, but it has six basic
steps:

IDENTIFY the standards development
efforts that affect your company’s businesses as early as possible.

TRACK and monitor the progress of proposed
technical standards on which your products depend.

PLAN for strategic representation on
key technical and management committees.

DRIVE the standards development process
to reflect your business interests.

ADOPT standards that are consistent
with your business directions and integrate them as appropriate into your
products and processes.

MAINTAIN a consistent and effective
corporate presence in the standards arena—this will help with step one.

To effectively accomplish this, the company must address its standards
involvement in two areas. First, the company must internally manage its
employees’ involvement in standards activities. This is true whether the
company wants to be a leader or a follower. In either case the company
must be aware of what is going on in the standards arena within its field
of expertise.

If a company decides to simply follow standards developed by others,
then “time to market” becomes a driver. Companies today cannot simply wait
for a new standard to come out in order to begin building to it. They must,
by virtue of some sort of limited participation, be ready to go as soon
as relevant new standards are approved.

Because technical participation generally yields direct and measurable
progress that can be tied to a company’s financials in the short term,
it is relatively easily justified.

The second area of SSM is more difficult to evaluate and justify, but
it is crucial for those companies wishing to take on a leadership role
in the standards making process. This is where the need for a standards
professional becomes apparent. To be a leader, corporate management must
make the long-term commitment in time and resources to participate in the
management processes of the standards community as well as simply the technical
committees. And because of the way the global standards community is structured,
it may take years to build the relationships necessary to place desired
people in key management positions. It will also take effort to build the
network within the company to develop corporate positions on issues.

Equally crucial is the consideration of what impact participation will
have on a company’s patent portfolio. Participation in industry committees
raises numerous legal issues and potential antitrust risks. By definition,
an “industry committee” is any group, formal or informal, of any size in
which employees meet to discuss technical, operational, legal, and regulatory
matters with others in the same industry —including competitors and potential
competitors. As a result, industry committees are by their nature combinations
of competitors—meeting one element of a possible antitrust violation as
defined in the Sherman Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act. While
open standards committees are generally seen as exempt from these acts,
they do pose a risk if the participants are not aware of the potential
dangers. Companies and participants must be aware of the consequences of
improper activity in order to avoid legal entanglements. Participant and
management training therefore becomes an important part of SSM.

What Are the Characteristics and Functions
of a Standards Professional?

How companies organize their standards activities to address SSM varies
widely from tightly centralized control to no control at all. This is largely
dependent on the history and culture of the organization and to a lesser
extent on the industry it supports. But regardless of the organizational
structure, the two basic management functions of SSM (internal standards
oversight and long term strategic committment) are made significantly easier
to implement if the company has a dedicated individual or two responsible
for corporate level concerns in the area of standards: the standards professional.

The ideal standards professional understands his company’s strategic
goals; operates at a high enough level within the company to have the ear
of upper management and to influence changes that need to be made; understands
the processes, inter-relationships, and politics of the global standards
industry; has a broad range of experience in both domestic and international
standards activities; is honestly interested in improving the process by
which standards are developed and used in a global environment. And, of
course, he leaps tall buildings in a single bound.

He serves as a conduit of information from relevant standards organizations
to the various business sectors within the company. He must be willing
to spend a lot of time traveling and have the management backing and resources
to do so; this is not a job that can be done from behind a desk.

How does one attain this position? Unfortunately, it’s not often in
personnel job descriptions. The general path is an evolutionary one beginning
with technical committee work directly involved with the employee’s “real
job,” and then accepting increasingly responsible officer positions in
technical committees, standards organizations, and delegations. At some
point, as the level of effort in standards work increases, the employee
will have to sit down with his management and alter his formal job description.
A draft template for such a job description can be found here.

Moving from Technical Participant to Standards
Professional

As technical standards participants begin to evolve into standards professionals,
it is incumbent upon them to make sure that the visibility attained for
their efforts is positive. One immediately obvious way is to work with
other employees in a similar situation to optimize interaction with external
organizations for reasons of membership, corporate presence, formalizing
who’s working on what, paying dues, etc. This can be done by creating what
might be called a Virtual Standards Office (VSO).

The VSO provides the company with a consistent address for standards-related
billing, interaction, faxes, corporate www.astm.org inquiries, notices
of awards, etc. How the VSO is managed inside the company is irrelevant
as long as the consistent external viewpoint is maintained. It could reside
as part of a larger corporate office such as Legal or Licensing or Corporate
Research. It could also be “owned” by a product division, although this
tends to provide insufficient protection against near-term product- related
constraints and budget issues. Although informal at first, the VSO may
eventually evolve into a true standards office.

Conclusion

There is no formal training or job description for what I’ve termed
the standards professional. But from the company’s perspective, the standards
professional should have four objectives:

To utilize the standards community and existing standards to develop and
market new products in a global economy.

To create new standards that benefit industry (including his company) and
the end consumer.

To create new market spaces and enlarge existing ones.

To work in a proactive manner to improve the process by which standards
are developed and how they are used to benefit consumers

The existence, enthusiasm, experience, and willing participation of standards
professionals is what makes the voluntary standards community so robust.
Global industry needs more of these people - so maybe it’s time for you
and your company to become more involved.
Clyde Camp holds a BSEE and MS in Computer Science.
For the last 20 years he has been heavily involved in corporate, national
and international standards activities while consulting with industry and
government on Strategic Standards Management. He holds numerous positions
on various ISO Technical Advisory Groups, the IEEE Standards Association
and the International Committee on Information Technology Standards.